Following its success last year, the College’s Edinburgh Hands on Balance Course will run again on 13-14 May 2019.
Currently the only multidisciplinary balance course in the UK, the course provides up-to-date management of balance disorders through a combination of lectures and small group workshops using state of the art equipment.
We spoke with the course convenor Dr. Alex Bennett, Consultant ENT Surgeon, who provided an overview of the course and outlined the benefits of participation.
Who is the course for?
Hands on Balance is aimed at ENT and Neurology Consultants, ENT and Neurology Senior Trainees, Medicine for the Elderly, Audiologists and Physiotherapists who are looking to improve their diagnosis and treatment skills, as well as seeking to keep up to date with management strategies for many common balance conditions.
What challenges is the course addressing?
Balance patients frequently have multiple diagnoses and a functional component to their symptoms. This makes the traditional teaching approach of specific lectures on discrete diagnoses poorly suited. In the Edinburgh Hands on Balance Course we focus on consultation and examination skills to ensure the correct diagnosis and engagement from the patient in their management, which is crucially important for their treatment.
What are the learning outcomes?
The course provides clinical value to participants, who will know how to run a balance clinic, as well as helping them to diagnose and treat PPPD, neurological causes of dizziness, pediatric vertigo, vestibular migraine and Meniere's disease.
Participants will also gain a better understanding of vestibular testing, in addition to learning clinical do’s and don’ts through a series of difficult case scenarios, including SCDs, MDD and vertiginous mythology.
What new skills will participants gain that they can apply in the workplace?
Participants will feel more confident when performing vestibular function tests, as they will learn when to do them, how to do them and what to make of them. They will also improve their examination skills, learning about the importance of history taking and how to manage patients who have already visited ENT.